Auston Matthews' former All-Star Game Teammate on the Market and He's Just What the Leafs Need

Brad Treliving has already mentioned that the Leafs would have preferred to let Fraser Minten spend the season with the Toronto Marlies in the American Hockey League.

Unfortunately a slew of injuries, including the lower-body injury that David Kampf is dealing with, has left the Leafs thin down the middle of the ice, especially while Auston Matthews was out.

Regardless of what the Leafs wanted to do with Minten this season, injuries forced the team to thrust him into a third-line center role while Treliving works to address the depth at center. That being said, one player that could help the Leafs is Rangers' center Vincent Trocheck.

Trocheck is in the third year of a seven-year deal he signed with the Rangers, which carries a $5.625M cap hit. Obviously, the Leafs would need some help on the cap hit, or would need to clear some cap space.

A proven playoff performer and solid 200-foot player is always an expensive asset, but with Auston Matthews, Morgan Reilly, Mitch Marner and William Nylander having some previous experience in playing with Trocheck at last season's All-Star Game on Team Matthews, perhaps the acquisition cost for such a versatile player is worth it.

The 31-year-old had 20 points in 16 playoff games last season and is coming off of three consecutive 20+ goal seasons, so he can provide the Leafs with the secondary scoring that has been lacking this season.

With the Leafs having replenished some of their draft capital and still holding all of their top prospects in their prospect pool, they may have the pieces necessary to acquire a player like Trocheck at or near the deadline. Whether or not they actually pursue him or someone else remains to be seen.